Misunderstood

Obama has an ‘adviser on Muslim affairs,’ Dalia Mogahed; she appeared on a British tv show hosted by a member of Hizb ut Tahrir, Ibtihal Bsis. Mogahed is on ‘the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships,’ which is something the president shouldn’t have in the first place. On this tv show she said, according to the Telegraph, that the Western view of sharia is ‘oversimplified’ and ‘the majority of women around the world associate it with gender justice.’

Well if they do they’re crazy, but I don’t believe they do. The majority of women around the world aren’t Muslim, for a start, and not all Muslims are fond of sharia, so Mogahed’s statistic sounds made up.

Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir’s national women’s officer, Nazreen Nawaz. During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular “man-made law” and the West’s “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism”. They called for Sharia Law to be “the source of legislation” and said that women should not be “permitted to hold a position of leadership in government”. Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that “promiscuity” and the “breakdown of traditional values” were what Muslims admired least about the West.

That’s bad. That stinks.

She said: “I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media. The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance. The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases.”

Well that’s just wrong – it’s not about the common perception in Western media, it’s about the real-world implementations of sharia. As far as I know – and do correct me if I have this wrong – there have so far been no implementations of sharia that were mild and egalitarian and obviously just. All the implementations of sharia that I know about – in Pakistan, in Algeria, in Somalia, in Sudan, in Saudi Arabia, in Afghanistan, in Malaysia, in northern Nigeria – have been harshly punitive and grossly unequal as between women and men. Seriously – if there is an example of sharia in the world that treats women fairly and doesn’t inflict savage punishments on people and especially women – do point it out. But in the meantime – there’s something revoltingly irresponsible about pretending that sharia is misunderstood, in the face of the horrible cruelties and injustices that we know about.

For the past five years, researchers in a modest office overlooking the New Haven green have carefully documented cases of assassination and torture of democracy activists in Iran…But just as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center was ramping up to investigate abuses of protesters after this summer’s disputed presidential election, the group received word that – for the first time since it was formed – its federal funding request had been denied…Many see the sudden, unexplained cutoff of funding as a shift by the Obama administration away from high-profile democracy promotion in Iran, which had become a signature issue for President Bush.

It’s actually not a matter of democracy but one of rights. If a majority in Iran favored torturing protesters, that wouldn’t make it okay. In any case, I don’t like to find myself preferring a Bush policy to an Obama policy, but in this case it seems that I do. I also find myself agreeing with Joe Lieberman and somebody at the American Enterprise Institute. Come on, Barack, don’t put me in this position! Reach out, good; talk to people, good; but don’t abandon human rights and women’s rights.

Am I simply mistaken, or is the Obama halo getting a bit tarnished of late? Sharia is wanted everywhere because women identify it with justice! Funding for Iran documentation is slashed! Free speech is in danger with US-Egypt Human Rights Council resolution! Is this the man who was speaking of the audacity of hope?

I think it’s more that Obama is so keen to mend the international rifts opened or widened by the Bush admin that he’s being way too conciliatory toward Islam. I kind of understand why he thinks he needs to…but obviously I think it’s a bad idea in some ways.

Well that’s just wrong – it’s not about the common perception in Western media, it’s about the real-world implementations of sharia.

When someone is engaged in defending the indefensible, it becomes all about the perception, and the material reality of the situation is completely ignored.

A few years back I read an article attempting to defend female genital mutilation. The author spoke entirely in terms of abstractions such as “culture”, “tradition”, “womanhood” and such. The material reality of young girls having their clits cut off just faded away into the background.

One thing that I find repulsive about both the far right and the far left (the article I talked about above was actually written by a left wing woman) is their habit of making abstractions and ideals more valuable than concrete individuals.

I become incoherent with rage when I hear people use culture and tradition as an excuse for curtailing my rights as an individual woman -albeit one who happened to be born in Iran. I’ve blogged about one of the more visual phenomena which plagued me since childhood. OB- with your permission I’ve pasted the blog link here:

Having said that, I understand that Washington funding has generally been viewed with hostility and suspicion by certain more people-based sources within Iran, as such funding gives credance to the non-stop regime claim about interference and conspiracies. So I wonder, is there a way to downplay overt funding for such organizations, while ensuring their survival through less direct and tangible support?

Firstly, the Obama administration should can Dalia Mogahed immediately. As far as the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, that monstrosity owns the possibly unique achievement of having outlived its usefulness before it was even formed. ‘Nuff said about that. I’m much more interested in the second half of this post.

So far, all that we know (from reading the article on the subject, which OB linked to from the main B&W page but forgot to include in the N&C post) is that this organization’s funding award has not been renewed, and that the authority for distribution of awards for such organizations has been shifted. Everything about *why* the funding hasn’t been renewed by the administration is purest speculation, utterly untainted by any evidence whatsoever beyond the fact of the de-funding itself. Generally, the article focuses on the facts about the organization – the work they do, and it does seem like very good and important work – but has no content about the funding decision except that where in the State Department the decision gets made has been changed.

This bears watching and one hopes more information will be forthcoming – but I certainly don’t think there’s enough information to intelligibly speculate about administration motivations or tactics from just this.

Courtesy of Dubya and his ilk, I often come up against the perception that all critiques of Islam are nationalistic, often from well-intentioned lefties as well as hyper-vigilant or politically driven Muslims. It strikes me as ironic that an intolerant and absolutist belief system is being defended in the name of tolerance and relativism.

What the Black Rope and Cutting Hell is this woman talking about? The relative) promiscuity and the (partial) breakdown of (some) traditional values are among the good things about Western culture. If anything, the transvaluation of traditional values relating to sex, the body, etc., needs to go a lot further.

Hmmm I’m still very much Pro-Obama but the man is worrying me increasingly these days: this faith council, his wishy-washiness over health care reform (not entirely his fault I know), and reticence about gay rights – you’re an intelligent and idealistic man Barack but you need to do more methinks and stop trying to pander to morons.

Oops! I didn’t forget to include the link but I obviously botched it in some way. On the list.

The funding itself isn’t enough but the apparent lack of communication seems ominous.

Still. One can see how a human rights group that had been funded by the Bush admin might seem tainted no matter how blameless its motives were. So among Bush’s many accomplishments is the tainting of various otherwise blameless human rights groups.

Maybe people on this blog need to decide whether the priority is to defend liberal values or prove their hatred for GWB. If the Bush administration was supporting a democracy promotion organisation in Iran, that’s good thing and a fair-minded liberal should praise them for it. And if the Obama administration is reversing that policy we should condemn that.

I thought the whole point about blogs like B&W was to stand up for genuine liberal values against the groupthink of the modern left. So prove it by daring to praise a Bush policy that you clearly agree with.

Also, the notion that an organisation has somehow become ‘tainted’ by association with GWB is no alibi at all for Obama. In fact it demeans him by implying that he’s motivated by a knee-jerk reaction to do the opposite of GWB, not by the merits of a given policy.

Part of the problem is that organisations can be “tainted” by association with governments. Various organisations have been seen as (or have been) proxies for state interests and sometimes you may have to back off or at least reduce high profile support in order to let them have any leverage.

Of course this can be taken too far and sometimes perfectly independent organisations are tarred. Hopefully the Obama administration is reducing its high profile support while keeping the quiet background work going on (but I’ll wait and see).

Maybe people on this blog need to decide whether the priority is to defend liberal values or prove their hatred for GWB. If the Bush administration was supporting a democracy promotion organisation in Iran, that’s good thing and a fair-minded liberal should praise them for it. And if the Obama administration is reversing that policy we should condemn that.

Well, that depends on how the democracy promotion organization was runas well as the motives for supporting it. For instance, it’s possible the intent was to cause a popular overthrow of the Iranian administration. And while that could be seen as a good thing (the people are getting what they want), if it is just a tool to get rid of the current leader with no further planning by the US then that would just lead to a power vacuum where we do not know what kind of person would take power(or potentially worse, a US supported puppet fascist as we’ve seen in other places where the US ‘helped them along’).

So color me suspicious of any US funding of “democracy promotion organizations” in other countries. I’d rather see the government leadership try to actually reach a diplomatic meeting of the minds with the leadership of the other country and coax them towards a more democratic government. It’s not like there are no bargaining chips that could be used. But then we wouldn’t need so large of a standing military, I suppose. Too much pork in Defense, so what we get are tense international standoffs instead of attempts to move forward as a common species.

“Maybe people on this blog need to decide whether the priority is to defend liberal values or prove their hatred for GWB. If the Bush administration was supporting a democracy promotion organisation in Iran, that’s good thing and a fair-minded liberal should praise them for it.”

“GWB” didn’t give a wet slap about “promoting democracy” anywhere in the world; the neocon state of perpetual war is all about cronyism and exalting the Leader. And American right-wing Christian-supremacist conservatism is no friend to women.

More generally, though I find it amusing that saying something (anything) good about Bush seems to be the progressive equivalent of farting in church – just not something done in polite society. Even though, just for the record I wouldn’t have ever voted for Bush, and would (were I American) have voted for Obama.

dzd, I discount your knee-jerk ‘what-aboutism’ and the rant about the neocon state of perpetual war, whatever that means.

It might be worth pointing out though that even in those parts of the US dominated by ‘right-wing Christian supremacist conservatism’ women have rights that women in even the most ‘liberal’ Muslim states (let alone Iran and Saudi Arabia) can only dream of. Not because Christianity is any better, but because liberal democracy is.

It might be worth pointing out though that even in those parts of the US dominated by ‘right-wing Christian supremacist conservatism’ women have rights that women in even the most ‘liberal’ Muslim states (let alone Iran and Saudi Arabia) can only dream of. Not because Christianity is any better, but because liberal democracy is.

That hardly makes it obvious that when the US ostensibly supports democracy in another country that it is for the purpose of aiding the people, as opposed to getting a good deal on oil and leaving the people to fend for themselves against the next tyrant that comes along.

I know what you mean about Bush of course…but I also understand the reluctance: I do think he was very bad in almost every way he could be. The hatred for any kind of thought or reflection or second-guessing is high on the list. I think he was a horrible influence as well as a doer of horrible things.

It’s perfectly possible to be a conservative or a Republican or both and not be like that. But Bush is like that.